<b>By last night an estimated 9,000 demonstrators had arrived in the second city, 300 miles southwest of Stockholm. Hundreds of people bared their buttocks in a protest aimed at sending a strong message to President Bush, and at least eight people were arrested after clashing with riot police outside a high school. Nobody was injured in the scuffle, which broke out after youths in black masks hurled bottles and cobblestones at police, marring a day of otherwise peaceful demonstrations.

The protesters included environmentalists furious at Mr Bush?s rejection of the Kyoto accords; feminists angered by his opposition to abortion; left-wing groups opposed to globalisation; death penalty opponents; trade unionists and a medley of groups opposed to Mr Bush?s policies in the Middle East, Cuba and Latin America. More than 40 groups came together under the umbrella organisation Bush Not Welcome.

They converged in the city centre to perform what was hailed as the first organised ?mass moon? protest. At precisely 4.08pm, amid smirks and bemused giggles from a row of watching policemen, a small brass band burst into sound and gave the signal for about 2,000 naked buttocks to be pointed in the direction of President Bush?s hotel.

Male, female, hairy, spotty, pale, tanned ? the range of bottoms displayed in the square opposite the SAS Radisson hotel was meant to give the visiting President a lasting and unmistakable impression of just how poorly he is rated by ordinary Europeans.</b>

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We must travel in the direction of our fear. --John Berryman

It was a wonderful show...it froze about 3/4 of the way through, but I was able to hear some stuff from the new album and some cute banter...Fran talking about his imaginary friend when he was 12 <g> and about there needing to be a law against keeping private diaries. LOL

He has a sort of modified mohawk, a result he said of trying to get rid of goofy colored roots after his dye-job started growing back.

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Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it. -- Pope John Paul II

{{{{{Les}}}}} OH, that explains the hairdo on Fran (right?) of Travis last night! It did look like a mohawk, but without the sides being shaved. It caught the purple light and looked pretty bizarre on that Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn last night. Purple light on a bright red tank top - interesting effect all around - hair with a purple tinge, purple biceps, and those big eyes tinged in purple. I liked the song he sang. It was off his latest CD, and was about singing: "She Sang" or something, maybe. He is a cutie!<p>
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yes, we're back and we had an EXCELLENT time. we drove a total of 4560km (trixie did all the driving!), went through eight states, waded in the atlantic, browsed countless malls, ate MANY krispy kreme donuts, toured creepy old buildings, met lots of interesting people, learned to begin and end every sentence with "y'all" and had more spaghetti than ever before.

we LOVED the carolinas (especially charleston, SC...which i would revisit in a heartbeat!) and made it out just before all that rain. now we're mildly depressed that it's over and we're home and we have to go back to work tomorrow. LOL.

oh, and we DID meet up with moon's son and d-i-l for dinner and they were great. i wonder where they get that from? <weg>